Salad Days

Today, while at work, I decided I wanted a salad. I hadn't purchased a takeout salad in the area before so I wasn't sure where to go. Someone told me that The Pita Pit made salads, but I hate the cartoon vegetable decorations in that place so much that the chances of me enjoying any food from there are almost zero. One time I got some falafel from there and rather than focusing on eating I was preoccupied by the dumb looking anthropomorphized stalk of celery I had seen minutes before.

Giving The Pita Pit a wide berth as I passed, I walked down the street to the Here and Now Deli. I breezed by their counter to the cold case where I perused the salad options, of which there were two. Option number one involved croutons and looked like a Caesar salad to me. Option number two had miscellaneous toppings on it like onions, olives, blue cheese, and carrot shavings. I decided on option number two, which I had to ask for, as the cold case was accessible only to employees. The employee asked which I wanted and I pointed. "Caesar?" the employee asked. "No, this one," I replied. "Caesar?" the employee repeated. "Ahhh..." I said. The employee reached in and pulled out the one I had pointed to. I nodded, perplexed, but glad that I would be getting the salad I wanted. I was then asked what kind of dressing I wanted, to which I said, "Blue cheese."

$3.99 later (plus tax) I got the salad back to work. I sat down and opened up the container. It was stacked high, I'll give it that, but I immediately had misgivings. I hadn't seen the salad close-up when I purchased it. Now, upon more careful scrutinization, several problems were evident. The cherry tomatoes were wrinkled, the olives had left little pools of olive juice on the pieces of lettuce where they sat, several large carrot shavings looked slimy, and much of the lettuce had browning edges. Still, the blue cheese dressing looked good and was plentiful.

After removing some of the most suspect looking tomatoes and pieces of lettuce, I poured the dressing on in liberal quantities. My first bite consisted of a large piece of lettuce and a green olive, both well covered with dressing. It was alright. Not great, but alright. Next I tried a carrot shaving, which, while they looked slimy, tasted REALLY slimy. I promptly removed the remaining carrot shavings from the salad. I then worked my way through about 2/3 of the salad. The best bite came at this point. I encountered a lone black olive under a piece of lettuce. I don't know what it was doing there, but it tasted pretty good. With a few unlikely looking pieces of lettuce remaining I decided to call it quits.

In retrospect I probably shouldn't obtain salads from mediocre delis and I certainly won't be purchasing any more salads from the Here and Now Deli. I might go there later to get a chocolate bar though.

Salad from Here and Now Deli: D+
Slimy Carrots: F-
The One Black Olive I Found: B-
Overall Experience: D